Anecdotally, LC diets are the only ones that really work! I have adopted a "paleo" diet for the last 9 months and have pleasantly lost between 2 and 3 stone, with a BMI approaching normal for the first time in years. A couple of points regarding this article: ffirstly, this mention of the diets being targeted at obese people, who have "poorer diets anyway". Are we to believe that the people scoffing processed meats and poor quality protein and fat would otherwise be on whole grains and legumes?! No, they'd be on donuts and coca cola. Would they be that much better off? They MIGHT slightly lower their risk of CV disease, but they are going to remain obese and end up with T2DM, thus increasing their risk of everything else. Oh yes, and CV disease. Secondly, this flippant mention of the interventional studies compared to all of this observational data. Which do you trust - the actual causative links proven with controlled interventional studies (albeit short term at the moment), or a load of people remembering what they've eaten for the last 6 months and extrapolating that to 15 year outcomes, with no consideration of whether they actually stuck to or lost weight on their diet? For me, it is a no brainer: I don't smoke or drink excessively, and being fat and getting T2DM poses a far greater threat to my longevity than perhaps slightly increasing my CVD risk. I am of the opinion that being slim and not being diabetic will more than make up for the extra fat and/or protein I eat, if those things do even matter anyway.
Posted by Farlsborough